


The Witch and the Red Man

by Soloh



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-21 15:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14918378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soloh/pseuds/Soloh
Summary: He was a man meant for a life of loneliness but was relentlessly hunted for the darkness lurking within.





	1. Chapter 1

He would have been a man capable of great depths of compassion, gentleness and tenderness. One capable of wild, mad love so consuming it could bewilder a lover to bend to his every will and demand if he so wished it.

 

A man of valor and bravery, of honesty and strength of morality. A true king amongst men.

 

James Fraser would have been all these things and more if only he hadn’t been cursed to be a wretched beast of violence.

 

A curse that would take hold of him against his will when sprouts of fury were near to surface. It writhed in his marrow in rippling waves of bloodlust killing all in his path. The sin of such acts weighed like boulders on his heart dragging him to hell where he knew his soul was bound.

 

In desperation he sought holy men and women of any and all faith’s to heal him. Enchanters and sorceress from across the seas who promised false salvation, leaving his body a marked tapestry of symbolic charms that left scarred skin of worthless hopes of taming the darkness within.

 

So the poor man kept to himself. Away from family, away from people, from those he could hurt, maim or kill. He so often killed. In defense always, but the sin of such an act weighed like boulders on his heart dragging him to hell where he knew his soul was bound for.

 

But try as Jamie might to hide, the world of man was always on the outskirts. Seeking to conquer the different and kill the unrighteous.

 

Men in thirst of revenge.

 

                                           

________

 

_Gaul - Night  
_

 

 

Eight days

 

It took eight days for men of villages to hunt him down.

 

To corner him with’ swords and axes, bows and arrows and lanterns of fire, alight with ghastly cobalt of weak man made sorcery, thinning the air with fumes of sickly sweet meant to leave him in a haze of confusion and nightmares drawn from the dark corners of his mind.

 

Minutes for him to tear nearly half the hunters from limb to limb, shreds of meat covered the forest floor, clung to trees and his own self in savageness that he was powerless to stop. Only his tears gave away the truth of his hearts misery.

 

And a mere moment of distraction for one bastard in the safety of the trees to shoot him with a dart.

 

Again and again and again.

 

Deep they penetrated, more like daggers then the needles that they were, laced with a poison he had never encountered. He felt the scorching burn of it flow in his veins darkening them to slate, just the shade of the men’s souls and his own. Jamie’s body for the first time went limp and lifeless and fell to the dirt beneath him.

 

Hands were upon him. Grabbing him. Twisting his joints to wield to chains of heavy iron. His lungs were stripped of air as a metal collar, ribbed with metal thorns, was locked tight around Jamie’s neck. The sharp thorns shredded his throat leaving it swollen with his tongue to hang loose like a dog.

 

They few left celebrated. Celebrated like fools in whoops of laughter and filthy taunts and sharp kicks to Jamie’s ribs and skull, taking no notice that one of their own hadn’t properly locked his arms…

 

The last man standing fled in shrieks of mother and God, the echo of it rung in Jamie’s ears as his mind slowly came to.

 

Covered in thickly, hot red, Jamie vomited, strangling his already swollen throat. Unshackled, he staggered to the river tripping on every step till he crawled, then simply dragged the husk of his beaten body to the rivers edge, glowing in moonlight that beckoned him. He’d rather face the frigid waters then have any of the villagers carry his body in mangled slabs of flesh, staked on wooden poles to be paraded through the streets.

 

But then Jamie felt her.

 

Her hands came upon his bare back, cool as the water that held his deliverance, turning him to face a woman so divine, with hair that could bleed into the stormy night and eyes like the wild beasts who stalk their prey, golden and dangerous but so lovely to behold.

 

Jamie tried to warn her to stay away, that she too would suffer the same fate as all the others. His hands still soaked black, trembled in quakes as they tried in vain to push her away but she only gathered him closer, his blood splattered form seeping into her garment.

 

“Hush, you are whole and safe with me.”

 

Her voice was as gentle as a mother’s kiss, her hands that embraced him so lovingly a salve to his wounds. Jamie’s heart was fractured into a million shards from such kindness and weeped into her chest. Was she an angel?

 

“I know you’ve battled the darkness within,” the angel spoke as she cradled his head. “How you’ve sought to keep it from freeing but I’m afraid I’m in need of _The Red Man_.”

 

Her words were a ramble that Jamie was afraid to comprehend. She knew him for what he was yet held no fear? His dull blue eyes near gray gazed into her own so brilliant, to find meaning but she looked away, down to his breast that heaved with breath growing shallow with fear.

 

“You must understand my life depends on you, only you, so please lie still.” Her voice was a cracked whisper and he felt her tears on his cheeks mingling with his own.

 

She drew a blade, hidden in the folds of her dress and slit her ivory wrist, letting the ruby liquid pool at his chest before placing her palm on his thrashing heart. Lips the shade of hawthorns in bloom moved in a soundless chant as she sealed her mark in a flare of searing pain that reached beyond the physical down to his very soul. Jamie screamed in gasps of agony but was left unable to escape.

 

The woman dragged her hand, leaving a trail of her blood back to where it had cradled his skull, pressing her forehead to his.

 

“I am so sorry my own, so sorry.”

 

Jamie could feel her guilt ridden sorrow deep in his bones as the heavy thrum of her heartbeat became his own.

 

A witch she was and he, her servant to be.


	2. Chapter 2

In those first few moments of dazed awareness Claire was all that was night, all that Jamie saw and breathed, her featherlight touch glided over his battered body in a tenderness to wounds slowly mending - blood lessening, tissue forming…

 

In another life this man would have thought her a most lovely thing. Surely spun from the breath of the earth, this rarity of spirit before him now. He would have marveled. Would have been struck down by her arrow like all men before him and welcomed such torment - on his knees, ribs cracked open to a heart inflamed. Where he laid with her amongst the wildflowers, crushing the bloom beneath as they caressed each other in all consuming desire.

 

Not a life where a witches blood mingled with his, forever bonded in covenant. The pulse of her in his veins so queer to be disturbing and Jamie fought her possession of him.

 

He pushed himself away from Claire, skittering on hands marred from shattered bones of man only to fall flat on his bruised face to the dirt and crackle of leaves - his body failing him in a throb that begged for rest. Jamie dug his fingers into the sodden ground lifting himself frantically to his knees.

 

“Why?!” Jamie’s voice was a rattling wail to the cruelty of his fate as another piece of his humanity was stolen away. “Haven’t I suffered enough and now to be bound to a witch!”

 

His eyes so diminished of life bore into her golden ones full of shame, ignoring her shed tears that still marked his face.

 

“You have and I grieve for what you have been through -” Claire gritted her teeth as Jamie grasped her stained wrist, squeezing the fine bones as his thumb pressed along the thin crimson seam, trickling slippery warmth.

 

“Speak once more of yer empty sorrow for me and I’ll rip yer thrrr -” The words soured on Jamie’s tongue, coming up in spittle that reached Claire’s cheeks as he bit his lip deep enough to split, face contorting to a darkening ire. He released his hold on her and gripped the soil in fistfuls of clumps to steady himself,breathing with a force that commanded the mounting burn of vile within to stop before it grew out of his control.

 

Claire watched Jamie’s strive for control in the  convulsions coursing rapid through his body, the straining heave of his chest bared from his tattered sark with her mark glaring angrily at her even in moonlight. Claire could do nothing but wait as the damp air, tinged in pungent musk and piercingly of iron, crisped around them and for the man across her to breathe without a shudder while her own only grew tighter with each passing moment.

 

“Why out of all the good and wicked souls did ye choose me?” His voice was a tired gasp too far gone for tears as he kept his gaze to his hands.

 

Every chamber in Claire’s heart lurched in overwhelming guilt at the necessity of her choice. She spoke cautiously, matching his tone knowing all she said would say could do little to excuse her desperation.

 

“I’m like you,” She began, fingers pulling her cloak closer to shield from the nights chill. “Hunted. But by a most dangerous man who means for me to suffer for a betrayal he was the deliverer of and it will be far worse then any sword or arrow could inflict with no promise of death.”

 

Hunted

 

No promise of death

 

Jamie had lifted his eyes to her then, sympathy and forgiveness were numb to a hardened heart, but still he looked.

 

“I won’t pretend that I haven’t wronged you.” She cried out.“ I have and will carry that sin past the veil of living but I can do little against a man like him.”

 

Jamie’s features flared in offense as he stood on muscles that shook - his healing slowing from being away from her touch - parting the remnants of cloth at his chest to show the full extent of her capabilities. “I wouldna call this scratch a wee nothing.”

 

She rose as well to meet his stance. “I’m a healer!” Claire affirmed, even as her own actions spoke differently. “I can see what lies underneath the skin, the sick riddled organs that cry for my touch like yours, threaded in your marrow, thriving like a disease. I’ve heard of you, know of the curse of bloodlust, what it makes you do-”

 

“So damn the man who has blood on his hands, is that it?” Jamie hissed.

 

“That’s not why I sought you out, followed rumors and gossip from the villages. Your curse protects you from magic. It riots against it when threatened.”

 

Except now, Jamie grimly thought. Her hold was something entirely different, something that couldn’t be purged with rage.

 

“What of yer ‘healing touch’ that ye’ve forced on me? Will it not wane like all the others? Do you not fear that I will shred the flesh from yer bones?”

 

She did fear him and needn’t speak the truth for he felt the cold, sharp prick of her trepidation in their link that she tried so hard to suppress from her face.

 

“I will prevail where others have faltered.” Claire glanced quickly at the glimpses of his exposed skin, the symbols that scarred his body, the deeply carved welts of a hopeless man. She wondered how many more were hidden away. “It’s my will that will keep you whole, to suppress the curse even if I cannot strip you of it.”

 

“A blessing masked in servitude and all I must do is kill for ye.” Jamie gave a mirthless laugh and nodded, tapping his fist against his thigh. “Aye, I’m verra good at that.”

 

Claire’s brows shot together with a vehement shake of her head at the spoken word of kill. “You will harm no innocent as long as I live, as long as I am near. Shield me from my evil and I vow to protect you from yours.”

 

Jamie leaned over Claire, close enough that the plumes of their breath came together in a rush of heat that slithered across each other’s frosted cheeks down to their necks in a shiver.

 

“My evil.” Jamie uttered with a bitterness that stung his tongue to speak. “And what of yours? What sort of man does even a witch cower from?”

 

Claire stared into his eyes with an openness of soul where he saw the terror of one who has beheld evil. A look so familiar, so like his own, stained forever with _His_ image. Jamie knew before Claire spoke the name of the creature who lurked in every depth of his being.

 

_“The Black Butcher.”_ Claire haltingly whispered, covering her mouth to smother the words before they took to the wind.

 

Jamie felt the life within him paralyze with an inward wail, where the wounds across his body were no longer inflamed with pain, ready to flee far off into the haven of mountains.

 

“You know his name.” It was no question Claire asked, as she could see who had given Jamie the plagues of rage that caused his figure to tremble and slump over like a child.

 

“I fear his name.” Jamie croaked. “To whisper it, to even think it is to invoke his presence here between us.” His face was crossed with the finality of dread when tilted towards Claire that dwindled any hope she may have had at seeing another sun. “He will find us and aye, as ye said, he will do far worse then give us death.”

 

Far off in the distance a chorus of howls cried out, signaling a hunt to all who could hear. Neither of the two flinched or stirred at the impending arrival of the starved beasts upon them, both were more worried about the one who crept in the shadows silent as the night. But as the calls grew closer, more rabid with hunger now, Jamie knew they would have to leave.

 

“The wolves have caught the scent of death and I’d sooner throw ye to them then fight them off as I am. We must go - ”

 

“Claire.” She finished, knowing he wouldn’t acknowledge her as such.

 

Jamie would’ve laughed at the name she gave him, of it’s meaning in the language shared to him from his mothers heart and those before her. Instead it left him with a longing for home where voices called to him in frustration for his lack of patience and unfinished chores, in need for him to reach the shelf where he hid his sister’s favorite book, and in love he hadn’t felt in so long and would never feel again. To hear his name once more would have to be from the lips that owned the last shred of humanity in him, the last piece of warmth.

 

“Jamie.” He replied gruffly, sealing his name to her with a stream of blood spat at her feet from the slash of lip. Claire expected nothing less, surprised he didn’t aim for between her eyes.

 

They would have to take to the vale of trees where all that stalks dwell in wait for all who seek _her_ sheltering embrace.

 


	3. Chapter 3

It felt like a lifetime ago back when Jamie was a lad, where his only problems were waking early in the morning before the streaks of sun blazed the sky with languid blues and pinks. To milk the cows fit to burst and feed the chickens ready to feast, then off to the fields to plow for harvest, only to get lost in the clouds or a dip in the chilly brook till he was as pruned as a wean. And always, ever always, arguing with his sister Jenny, over every aspect of each other’s being down to the loudness of their breathing. Lord, how he missed her so. 

 

_Had she grown past his hip now? Jenny would twist his bawls like the wee savage she was for wondering so._

_Did she ever marry, Ian? So obvious were they in stolen glances, a graze of wrist…_

_Maybe children of her own just as small as she.  
_

Jamie could still remember his families faces, all beaming with pride and a love always felt yet seemingly tripled in those final moments at home. His father and sister a pair of dark haired silkies and his mother a kindred flame of locks, all held a sheen in their eyes that stung at Jamie’s own. He was leaving them to sail to Gaul to be an educated man in his cousin Jared’s keeping, like Jenny had before him.

 

But there was little those images of loving warmth could do to keep Jamie sane on the the tortuous tides of sea, where every swell of wave brought forth the suffocating stench of fishy brine and filth of sailor that twisted his wame to constriction and burned his throat with bile. That’s when Jamie’s godfather Murtagh (sent to accompany his travels and oversee his pension for foolery with a hard twist of an ear or whip of a belt at his head), would sing a tune to ease his sickness.

 

_Will you search through the lonely earth for me_

_Climb through the briar and bramble_

_I’m with the ghosts of the men who can never sing again  
_

Murtagh would take his coarsely calloused hand and gently stroke Jamie’s copper hair soaked in sweat and wipe the vomit that had dribbled to his chin barely stubbled in reddish gold. Jamie had never known the man to have such a tenderness of touch or so sweet a voice.

 

Did Murtagh forgive him from his perch high above with a spirit at peace with the Lord? Or was he beside him in the here and now?

 

Perhaps, he was humming that same old tune.

 

Just three months living abroad as a man walking amongst humanity, Jamie held a heart filled in triumph from a duel over a woman whose affections he had won. Again and again, Jamie had been rewarded by his Annalise, so perfectly beautiful and petite with a charm of wit that spoke to his own unlike any lass of home.

 

Jamie still thought of her on forsaken, wretched nights and days where he could smell Annalise’s perfume of roses that coated her silken skin, of which she was never shy to show or press Jamie’s touch to wherever he dared. To please, tease and kiss that had Jamie longing achingly between his thighs and desperately - shamefully at his own hands.

 

A temptation Annalise was that Jamie willingly chose to throw himself to. And he did just so that day forever scarred to his soul.

 

Jamie was on his way to see Annalise for a late night rendezvous where her father was away and mother seeking oblivion with a handkerchief dripping in laudanum clutched to her breast. Just Jamie and Annalise who cared little for layers and layers of troublesome cloth.

 

On his way out the front gate of Jared’s apartment, Jamie saw a figure at the corner of the street that very well could have been the shade of a ghostly haunt if not for the spark of light and fumes of smoke that followed, indicating the breath of the living. Jamie being a man of manners no matter the hour tipped his head to the stranger with a grin to bid him well and off the blush stained lad went strolling down the street.

 

But not for long.

 

Annalise’s mother had awaken in a fit of hysteric delusions, wailing with need of her daughter, sending Jamie home with great reluctance and disappointment at his own ineptitude to assist. Veering down the cobbled street he noticed the iron gate of his cousins home was left ajar with a screech of unbalance. An anxious stride to the front doors that rushed a chill to clutch his heart, Jamie saw that the heavy set doors were hanging off their hinges and splintered at every edge. Where beyond the sway of wood all was engulfed in unnatural silence and obscured from his vision, with only the rich tang of blood his greeting.

 

With a guiding hand along the wall of the entryway that turned towards the parlour room, there was a soft flicker of a melting candlestick that cut through the dark, along with a whimpering, gasping cry. Jamie’s godfather laid on the floor, choking on blood that frothed at his mouth and drenched his beard in a shining black and sword off to the side. Had it ever been raised? Murtagh’s assault was splattered to the walls and revoltingly hot on the carpet that seeped through the breeks of Jamie’s knees as he bent to find the wounds. To stop the gush of death. To save the life of the man who was his idol in boyhood. And still even now.

 

But ahead of that body that writhed in fear and fury, stood a man whose features were hidden away, dressed in ruined finery that clung wet to his lean, unassuming frame. His hands were unadorned in weaponry yet held the gleam of slaughter in their grip, as they were wrapped around the to and fro of hair still immaculately tied with a violet ribbon. His cousins favorite color.

 

“You came home.” Relief, so like that of a lover, crawled from the strangers lips to a caress of Jamie’s ears in a horror that resounded deep within him to scream and run. Commanded vengeance. To cry for help.

 

Jamie would remember in that moment that there was an absence of air all around. The life within him already resigned to a fate destined for the grave, as he made his choice. Running towards the murderer, with the sword of his godfather wielded slippery in his grasp, Jamie slashed his steel at the throat only to be stopped by a block of an arm. The sword, ablaze with his last shred of bravery, shattered in a rain that carved into the flesh all along the breadth of Jamie.

 

Who had gone rigid as stone. Not only in terror but by an invisible force that seized Jamie by his very marrow. Where he was powerless to defend his life as hands smooth and slick were upon him, crushing the bone of his skull with unyielding pressure and drawing out a curdling scream. Jamie fell on his knees to the squelch of his own blood and piss, down to his back with the man straddling him and clear before him. The lone candles flame had caught on the carpet and licked across the mans face misted with the red of Jamie’s kin, his hair black as the eclipse and eyes, soulless as the devils. All that Jamie could do that was left to him was invoke a damnation of the mans soul.

 

“Burn in fucking hellfire!”

 

The mans face softened with a blooming grin and a bemused chuckle that disturbed Jamie to a soundless weep. He released his hold of Jamie’s head, grazing his fingertips to tears and cuts against the petrified lads cheek, dipping his mouth to a whisper that kissed Jamie’s trembling lips.

 

“Join me.”

 

_The Black Butchers_ curse to Jamie held no pain that he could remember, not until he awoke drenched in a christening of carnage. Bodies of men he knew to be neighbors around him, with his skin tingling with the last vestiges of their heartbeats.

 

Then there were voices of men, alive and shouting in a swarm. Outside with torches, reflecting bright in the windows glass. Armed with all that could bludgeon, stab and gut.

 

So Jamie ran. And ran. And ran

 

Hid in caves. Shades of mountains. Safety found in the solitude.

 

Sought miracles never granted. Crossed villages to do so, where the inevitable would fly in streams of crimson to a rising gale. A fate forever doomed to those who glanced his way. Saw the fire of his hair. Remembered the gossip told over drams and pews of The Red Man.

 

For years Jamie lived this way to no avail.

 

And now here he was. Trapped in a land not his own, wearing the clothes of a man he killed to shield him from the cold, and bound to a woman who would lead that demon right back to him.

 

In the twilight hours of trekking through the forest aching for dawn, Jamie and Claire were quiet with one another. Neither wanting or daring to engage in anything more then a grunt or sigh to signal a slowing of pace, a moment of rest.

 

Jamie approached a slope of earth covered in gorse flowers, their spikes sharper then needles could scratch against the cuff of breeks to pierce the skin raw, when a foulness of voice cut the air and broke Jamie out of his morose reverie.

 

He looked up to see Claire, twisting about as her footing had caught in the dense undergrowth of ivy concealing the dips in the forest floor. She pulled the same thin blade she used to split her wrist on the vines and nearly toppled over on her arse in the process with shoulders slumping from the strain that mirrored Jamie’s own in a shake of fatigue. They would need to rest. Now rather then later. Jamie threw his sight (softly blurring at the corners) to the trees in the distance, where only the creak of boughs whistled with the wind and to the blackness inbetween where not a stir of the wee things that lurked about could be seen or heard.

 

“There.” Jamie said flatly in a powdery huff, sounding hoarse and scraping at his throat. He found himself regretting his dismissal of Claire’s pass of drink but Jamie would rather not piss in the pitch dark. Or worse, a shit.

 

Jamie skittered down the slope without a glance back to Claire, who followed the imprints of his boots down to a gathering of low hanging trees and blue thorned bushes. Opposite one another, they both collapsed against the bark, pulling at the cloth around their bodies tight and shuffling uncomfortably where they sat as the soil was hard as ice beneath them, unsoftened by the grass. Claire’s brown eyes heavily lined closed in relief, trusting in Jamie that he found their surroundings safe. Something he found to be odd for another person to think so of him. It had been so long.

 

The crickets chirped their graceless songs, the leaves rustled with every whip of air from above but Jamie kept his hearing alert, his nerves still refusing him sleep. In frustration with his own paranoia that always served him well (his head still attached but with eyes soon to dissolve in a slurry) Jamie sought to control his emotions in a shivered query to Claire.

“How long has it been since ye’ve seen _him?”_

 

Claire’s sight fluttered open to a watery sting with nerves jerking from the abruptness of sound. Nerves always jumping at a dash along her periphery or a shadow holding whispers just along the shell of her ear down the sweep of neck. The presence of a phantom seeking Claire’s whereabouts where even sleep held no sanctuary for her as he was always waiting with the deadly patience of an arachnid before it’s strike of fangs. But she’d always escape in a wake of her own convulsing breath and staggering pulse.

 

“Weeks. And hopefully never again beyond that day.” She said with a waver quickly reined in, tucking a hand under her chin should she need to slap it to her mouth. “But he could be anywhere, you know that. Even here. Now. And we wouldn’t know. Not until he wanted us to.”

 

A wish to ignore the hitch in her words Jamie carelessly questioned what Claire did to incur the butcher’s wrath. He was asking for a penny dreadful in the dead of night, something Claire felt just as keenly, the reciprocation spilling to Jamie in a shudder across his skin from their link. It was a time before she spoke, a wisp of tone that even she wasn’t aware of inflecting.

 

“I told you that my gifts are rooted in healing the sick, a craft I learned from a man lost to the ages now, My Maître Raymond.” So perfectly strange was Claire’s guardian and mentor, in manner anda grenouille in appearance. But a figure that walked too close to the line of decency and immorality that had left Claire to wonder if that was his downfall.

 

“We had a quiet reputation and apothecary of our own with a trusted few knowing of what we were. Even still, the butcher caught word of us.” Claire remembered his hushed arrival so soundless she questioned if he even breathed. How Raymond’s face drained of it’s hue when his gaze lifted from his parchment ruined with the spill of ink and drop of quill. The subtle stroke of stubbied fingertips against the embroidery of his coat to signal for Claire to hide, a gesture seen by eyes devoid of light.

 

“We were dragged to his dwelling to heal a man - a boy truly, that he called brother.”

 

“A brother? Jamie asked in a confounding shock. "Ye mean to tell me that creature was born of a woman? Human?” He had never pondered the butchers creation, only ever inquiring to olden enchanters of his makers name (the title of butchery was all that was given) and a cure from the wickedness that was spilled down Jamie’s throat.

 

Claire nodded, she herself having once had the same disbelief. “Who sired him is the greater evil. But a mother he had and who named him _Johnathan Randall.”_

 

“He promised our lives would be spared if we could save his brother, Alex life and if we didn’t…”

 

In a room of dying a flame laid Alex, a frail and gasping thing in a bed of pillows that propped and quilts that did nothing to purge what was killing him in a slowed agony. Neither of the healers needed to lay a hand on him to see the affliction growing inside the boy. It could be seen from just a glance of Alex, envelopled in a shroud of livid black that smelled putridly of burning rot. The radiant glow that all good men have was being smothered by what emanated from Randall in malevolence and what hopelessly cried in sorrow for death in Jamie.

 

But what thrived in them was killing Alex and them soon enough with him.

 

Then Claire’s Maître patted her arm, giving it a gentle squeeze and a crack of what she supposed was a reassuring smile. He shook his chin for her to keep to the wall towards the back, away from Randall glowering at Alex’s bedside. Then Raymond pulled from his waist a knife, slitting his wrist and placing his palm on the boys bared chest alighting it in blue, all while envoking the unholy spells of _Les Disciples du Mal._ His personal obsession that Claire had never approved of that would now save them from being strewn across the room.

 

It was a hope short lived as Raymond’s blue aura erupted frantically in a struggle, clashing with Alex’s in a consumption that hollowed out their skin and dissolved the flesh within.

 

Claire ran for the door and to the stairs. Falling in a smash of shoulder and hip, broken to the ground with an intensifying swell of pain. Claire had been rendered immobile by a simple brush of Randall’s will and all she could do was scream while his hands buried in her curls ripping at her scalp, dragging Claire roughly to the bed where the remains of the two laid atop one another.

 

It would have been the end if not for her body healing hurriedly in defiance of impending death. For the force of her own power to raise what was once broken and to slash across Randall’s eyes in a sear that toppled him off her with a wail.

 

And Claire ran from the room. Never stopping. Not until she found a chance to escape Gaul before the waters would ice over in winter.

 

_Jamie_

 

Claire didn’t bother asking Jamie if he understood her need of him now. What right did she have when he had suffered from the same man’s hand. But she returned the question, it only being fair that she had to relieve the experience.

 

“What about you?”

 

With his gaze brimming with a gloss that was shaded in dusk from Claire, Jamie replied flatly -

 

“I noticed him.” And he curled his back to Claire to grab what little comfort sleep would grant him.

 

It wasn’t much, a few hours only, as the prick of awareness had Jamie rise with a jolt on all fours to Claire, softly breathing a snore from parted lips, brace her tightly with a rough shake and insult.

 

“Wake up, ye bleating goat!”

 

With a tap of cheek to stir her. That was Jamie’s mistake.

 

Claire woke to a throbbing hand and Jamie’s face hovering closely above hers with three black gashes running down the curve of his cheekbone to a mouth strained to a scowl.

 

“What on Earth -” Before Claire could say another word Jamie pressed himself to her with his entire weight, squashing her ribs and lungs to a sputtering breath for air.

 

“Quiet yerself there’s -”

 

Claire didn’t, as she caught sight of her hand deeply bruised with teeth marks.

 

“You bit me!” She exclaimed.

 

Jamie would have countered that she nearly blinded him when he tried to wake her but the reason for needing to do so pierced the night with snarls and howls surrounding them.

 

Jamie lifted himself cautiously to a sitting position, Claire moving with him, chin on his shoulder with fingers clutched beneath his cloak, directly at his sark and cutting at Jamie’s skin. In fear of the golden eyes dotting the forest like fireflies but mostly from the rising call to attack bubbling inside Jamie. Claire restrained his senses quickly bursting in bloody impulse with a summoning of her mark upon him, painfully rattling her mind and sending her heart to rapidly palpitate.

 

“Leave me be woman, if ye care to see another day.” Jamie warned with his tone a dangerous growl, keeping his attention forward with a hand digging just as deep in the tender skin of Claire’s arm clasped to his chest. An invasion of filthy desire to rip it from her frame frightening Jamie but the flood of her in his veins keeping it just in his mind. And for that at least he was thankful.

 

“To the right of ye, there’s a split in the tree. I dinna care how fat yer arse is, wedge yerself there until I’m done with them and only when I’ve come back to myself.” He tilted his head to Claire with a wry smirk. “Will be a true test of yer bewitchment on me, aye?”

 

Claire curled her nails one last time at Jamie’s chest for his less then kind comment that had him grunting, before slackening her hold on him (the physical and intangible). She was readying herself to run like hell when a wolf, hulking in size with fur white as it’s teeth brighter then moonlight, approached them from the blackness. It’s eyes the vibrant color of the forest itself fixed on Claire in shining familiarity and Jamie shifted himself to block her from it’s view, much to her surprise.

 

“Don’t move.” Claire ordered when she felt Jamie’s muscles spasm and his body lurch while hissing under his breath, _“Shit.”_

 

“Are ye mad woman?! I’m no’ yer dog! I willna -”

 

_“Mo calman geal.”_ A voice inhuman came from the slack jaw of the wolf, deadening Jamie of speech and saliva. The beast not only spoke the language of Jamie’s homeland far across the sea, the damn thing talked.

 

_Mo calman…?_

 

Jamie whipped his head to Claire, white as any dove with a drop of red spilling from her nose to the curve of her lip aquiver that she quickly wiped away in a smear. It was then Jamie realized that despite the adrenaline coursing through his veins he was still in mastery of himself, or rather Claire was and seemingly just barely.

 

_“Come wi’ me.”_ The wolf beckoned, then cackled devilishly that tugged at it’s mouth, prying it wide with a waggle of it’s tongue and flare of steaming nostrils. _“Before my pets fill their belly’s wi’ ye.”_

 

Claire exchanged a glance towards Jamie where he shook his head at any notion of stupidty of hers that didn’t end with him covered in animal but still very much alive.

 

“Yer going to listen that creature?!” Jamie asked incredulously, even as the hoarde of wolves began to swarm upon them in a circling taunt of teeth.

 

“What other choice do we have?”

 

Jamie’s eyes darted around him before landimg back on Claire in grudging resignation. “Aye. But if one of them howlers nips at yer leg I’ll encourage the fiends to reach a bit higher.”

 

“Not if they don’t take a bite of your redhead first.” Claire mumbled not intending it as a shot but the honest truth even so Jamie felt his throat catch almost in a chuckle.

 

They rose together, still attached at the palms, with neither bothering to raise issue, an excuse of keeping Jamie in control was all that was needed. But in truth a touch of human, however veiled in magic and curses, was a desperate and unexpected comfort to them both. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The big bad of this story was actually supposed to be Master Raymond who was stalking Claire’s dreams and would eventually (unknowingly to you readers until close to the end) struck a deal with Jamie (seeing him through Claire’s eye) in his dreams to deliver Claire to him. But it was all so complicated and in order to get this story going in I went to bjr (part of what was supposed to be a second arc).
> 
> *The song Murtagh sings is, “Detectorists” by Johnny Flynn. I was randomly looking for this song and found an English murder ballad from another century instead. Which is what made me decide to move forward with this story.
> 
> *The bite scene is from my thirteen year old selfs brain when I first thought of this story (which was inspired by a dress) about an empress and a cursed man. It’s a little odd but I had to put it in. my own silly easter egg.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


	4. Chapter 4

Dawn had come and gone but two souls would never have known so, as it's gentle ray's had withered to dusk by the vast treetops where all beneath the boughs was still a shroud of secrets. As the wearied two trudged deeper into the wilderness a looming fog began to drift along the bramble. Plumes of purple and pink petals (deceptive in color and covered in thorns) dotted the ground like stars piercing the white to guide a tentative step away from small pools of water that were scattered about, reflecting only what ones imagination could invision in it's boggy depths.

 

A creature barely human, vacant eyes turned up to the neverending infinity of a starless sky with a blueberry mouth parted for one last gasp of air, one more plea for a kiss never to be bestowed, lost to the watery darkness. Perhaps there was nothing more but the floating specks of dragonfly wings and fallen leaves, to the sunken remains of songbirds from a dive taken far too deep. Or was it a long fingered snatch of a claw hiding in the ripples of elsewhere down, down, below.

 

Now and then a slender hand would brush up against a bush of berries to be shared, ripe and sweet, only to be ignored in stomach churning regret. One would insist despite the protest, the other would finally yield in red smeared hunger. But then an ankle would roll from a slip of verdant moss - a hand clasped for balance ripping at an already ruined sleeve, a hard press to a chest with a grunt of a language harsh and cackles more akin to hyenas, spewed from jaws eager for a fall of meat. A pause in their trek however would do.

 

Claire held her chin to her chest with a glare at the winding fog as if it would disperse. But more so to lessen the dizziness pulsing in a swirl behind her eyes and striking waves across her mind everytime Jamie would stir with emotion befitting of his savage title. But she had the fortitude to withstand the pain of what had killed her master, and the strength of spirit to quell the ravenous evil battling her over a man's soul.

 

Jamie for his part felt the unnerving sensation of fear, having never experienced it's crippling hold for so long without it triggering his deadly trance where he woke to a horror of his own doing. And he knew why that was. The woman leaning on his arm was growing more cumbersome, more laboured of breath that melded with the ghostly wisps around them. Jamie was torn between letting her plummet to a split of skin or to say to hell with it all and throw her over his shoulder. Better then pulling him into chilly ponds.

 

With frustration flaring and a sharp spike in adrenaline rising from the blurs of four legged movement ahead, Jamie felt her _touch,_ warm under his skin, pushing further within. A grasp to steady. A balm to soothe.

 

Jamie's lungs expanded with a breath of cool morning dew that reddened his nose and chapped his lips as he wrapped an arm around Claire's waist, drawing her closer, upright. They shared a shiver from a passing gale, then a budding heat nestled between. She mumbled a thank you, gripping his belt under the cloak for support and he replied with a loosening of his, a warning that his opinion of her was still lower than that of a midge.

 

Claire sighed without argue, at least he hadn't rolled his shoulder to dislodge her cheek, allowing her (unknowingly so to him), to rest her sight however brief.

 

Jamie steered them from a soggy drop to an incline of ground that strained his legs, his mortal fatigue catching up with him spurred forward only by the watchful stalks of the pack that glinted through the frosty air.

 

"Seeing as that white mammoth was familiar wi' ye," Jamie cocked his chin to the far distance where the elder wolf had scampered off from the pack. "Do ye ken where we're being led?"

 

"That mammoth I'm almost sure is _Fenrir_ the maneater, and it's not he that I'm familiar with but possibly the one inhabiting it's form." Claire could feel a quiver pass over Jamie and she glanced curiously his way.

 

"You've lived in these forests, surely you must've seen the like here and there. Even in _Scotia,_ I thought it the land of faerie and water horses."

 

Jamie huffed, bowing his head from a low hanging branch. "All my time in these forest I've seen spirits who mind themselves as long as I return the gesture but never have I seen creatures as olden as they. As for my homeland, we have wonders to fear and praise but monstrosities like that." Jamie shook his head. "We've done away with." And for once he agreed with mans judgement of the different.

 

It was then Claire dug her fingers into the leather strap of his waist as she felt a shifting of elements in the air, saw slashes of charms cut into the bark of a rowan tree marked in old blood. Hopefully invisible to Jamie's senses. But she was not.

 

"What is it? I can feel yer pulse jittering in my chest."

 

 _He could?_ But that was a question for another time.

 

"I don't know where we're being led but it's by who I think it is you must control yourself when -" Claire's voice trailed off as Jamie froze in his step, catching sight of the markings that began to shimmer like the moon on black waters, and grabbing her by her shoulders to face him.

 

"What is it that awaits us if not another one of they?" Jamie growled, as his back of scarred symbols began to sting as if freshly carved.

 

No answer was given as a young wolf (yet still big as an elk) came snarling and snapping at them, saliva dripping from it's jaws gummed bright red. Jamie shoved Claire quickly behind him, readying for the crushing blow of flesh and bones, while she curled her fingers around the hilt of blade knowing it was a useless defense. Another one of the wolfs sisters leaped out from the mist to tackle the other, either to prevent a gruesome carnage or to be the first to relish in a feast upon their fatty marrow. The latter it seemed as more wolves joined the fray, disappearing into the fog with only the sounds of their rabid rampage cutting through the air like a thundering storm.

 

Claire and Jamie pulled at each other in escape, to be lost in the thicket of clouds not caring if their acrid scent of fear would make them easy to track, preferring to be hunted then find their fate in the mouth of the victor.

 

They ran with the last bolts of stamina they had, not bothering to mind the trails of flowers when the ground beneath them vanished with only a shout and high screech left in their wake. It was a steep bruising tumble to the red horned fungi protruding from the soil, meant to constrict the lungs that blackened the tissue with it's noxious spores and swell the heart to cease it's beating.

 

Unless you have the ability to purge death from your organs…albeit slowly.

 

Claire managed a good deal better, having fallen to the wet leaves, and maneuvered herself to Jamie, touching his chest and back lightly with her hands, drawing the poison from his vein's more quickly then he could, sending him into a coughing fit that he spewed to the dirt. She smoothed his damp copper locks away from his brow, wiped the blood the shade of ashes from his mouth and nose thanks to the shrooms that could only wrinkle her nose at their odor.

 

"You're lucky you have a skull harder then iron and blood thicker then oil, you know." A hint of a smile had barely shone through when his eyes freed of their daze changed to a stare of ice.

 

"You aren't going to bite me again are you?" Jamie's lips almost twitched in humor before jerking away from her caress with palms to his cheeks, rubbing the kindness that once was there away that then slid straight to his eyes groaning at what he saw off in the distance. Underneath the grove of trees, saplings of protective oak and blackthorn had bundled together to form a twisted dwelling where the wood began to ripple in a slither, scrapping against one another to weave into spiraled knots and blooming leaves.

 

What lied inside had awoken.

 

A wicked hag of black leathered skin was what Jamie's mind had conjured. Who would be adorned with a crown of his and Claire's gnawed bones dripping with the last drops of their blood that hadn't been licked clean by her viper tongue.

 

He gave Claire a vehement shake of head.

 

"No!"

 

"Yes." Though her answer was less then confident with her face mirroring his and their link a mutual trickle of dread. Even so.."This is where you trust me. No matter how you feel towards me, what calamity you wish to fall on my soul, calm yourself in her presence until I know if she means us harm. Trust me to protect you, Jamie. It's what I vowed to you."

 

Jamie could see the strain of keeping him whole line her features, swaying her frame. Fitting for what she had done to him yet still the nagging tug of a man he thought long gone urged him to relinquish himself to her care. He hung his head with a slump of shoulders.

 

_"Mhac a 'chas!"_

 

The door opened before they arrived on the threshold, a molten light flashing on their faces invitingly warm with the shade of a figure not at all like the triple eyed, leathered being Jamie was expecting. She was a woman with hair the blood of _Scotia_ itself, flying loose past her breast white as the mist that had enveloped them, barely covered by her silky gown that parted low in such a way Jamie had only ever seen down the back alleys in _Par-sii._ But what caught his attention most that had him tight throat with an involuntary call of mind to Claire, were her eyes. Large to intimidate, to hypnotize. So like a luminous jewel that held the forest within them, cut sharply down the center. A cat-eyed creature she was.

 

"Hello, Geillis." Claire called cautiously as she carefully positioned herself in front of Jamie.

 

 _"Mo calman geal."_ She breathed with so lovely a smile, her face aglow, that continued still even after…"Ye look of shit."

 

Before Claire could answer Geillis made a move towards Jamie who was fighting mightily with himself as his back flared hot again in warning, flinching away from her outreach of hand in a glare she found wholly amusing.

 

"And this skittery thing." She crooned. "Ye want to tear yer teeth to my gullet don't ye lad?" Geillis' eyes dilated to obsidian as she saw beyond to the scar at his chest that sang of enchantment. "I can see why ye don't."

 

She grinned devilishly wide to Claire. "He's a blood drenched stag this one. Tell me, lass do ye sleep with a knife in yer hand with him? Or is it with his -"

 

No more was remembered as Jamie, the poor lad who had been hunted for eight days with little rest and nourishment, who had been blood shackled to a witch and then ran from the threat of beasts, finally succumbed to exhaustion.

 

____

 

Claire laid a blanket atop Jamie's sleeping form by the hearth, dragged there by the two woman, and feeling the burden of her own doing lighten, she almost felt compelled to join him on the floors. But an impatient squawk at her back had Claire back on her feet with a lean against the walls of saplings, where her fingers traced the sprouts snaking between the crevices, rustling and twirling for her touch and smelling of home.

 

"Yer making my hemlock blush, lass." Geillis purred as she gave a gentle stroke to the fine feathers of her raven Boromir, who sat with her at the blackwood table, scorched at the edges and grooved in frantic claw marks in others. Be they human or animal Claire did not question as she swiped away the hanging vines that tickled along her face, sitting across from Geillis with a cup of tea, thickly made with seeds stuck to the rim, pushed her way.

 

"Ye look as if I had poisoned yer brew." She said with an added mumble lost in a sip, coating her lip to a shiny plum, "Does nothing to ye anyhow."

 

"Considering how we ended things on a bad note..." That was putting it mildly. Theirs was a friendship formed under starlight that shattered when a question of alluring paths elsewhere arose, places away from the only home she knew. Claire remembered quite vividly the starlings that ravaged her garden and that had stalked her walks down streets with stabbing plucks of her curls for weeks long after their parting. "And if my memory serves me well you called me a great many horrid insults with the only word among them I understood being, _Sassenach."_

 

Geillis licked her lips, leaning her chin to her palm. _"Sassenach_ ye are and still _an t-amadan._ If you had followed me like I had asked then ye wouldna be in this mess now would ye?"

 

Claire sighed at the impending argument building from her old friend, pressing her fingertips between her tired eyes with her wrist bare, the single slash still visible. Geillis eyes stared wide in startlement.

 

"Claire, what have ye done to yerself?" Geillis' voice was of hushed tenderness Claire had only heard her use with her most precious of animal kin and the once when she had asked her to leave Raymond.

 

"It's not that, only the blood bond," she explained, tugging at her cuff.

 

"After our quarrel, I never would have thought ye had it in ye to use the dark forces for yer bidding."

 

"My bidding?" Claire uttered barely above a whisper, offended at the word. "I went weeks with little rest terrified I'd find the butcher Randall in my dreams, his hands upon me until his touch seeped past my skin, squeezing my flesh bringing it to his lips and mine. That I would wake with him standing over me, his breath on my cheeks waiting for me to scream. I was alone and I - I just wanted to feel safe."

 

Claire looked over to Jamie, still furrowed brow even in sleep. "I did not slit my wrist to gain a servant and in the end if all I manage to do is damn my soul to saves his then it won't be such a waste."

 

Geillis swallowed the last of her prickling spite, reaching over the table, covering Claire's shaking hand, spread along the table, with hers.

 

"Randall," she began softly "has been terrorizing the folk of our circles searching for ye, tis how I heard of yer Raymond's fate. I sent my Boromir to scope the land for ye, had to make a deal with _Fenrir_ and his daughters to bring ye here." Though considering the state of the two Geillis didn't think their deal still stood.

 

"Do you know Randall's whereabouts then?" Claire asked hopefully.

 

"He crawls around from every gutter to alley and by the time I hear of his presence he's gone like a puff of smoke." Claire finding no comfort in the press of Geillis' hand, pulled away from her to the cup of seeds and froth, contemplating the reveal of her fortune at the bottom.

 

"You could stay here ye ken." Geillis gently urged. "Randall is no friend to any beast that lives in these forests, he willna find ye here."

 

"You can't promise that he won't. If you found me how far away is he from doing just the same?"

 

Geillis tilted her head to the hearth where Jamie was curled by, her features growing hard. "So ye would rather trust yer life to a man who reeks of blood and yers soon enough if yer no' strong enough to master him?"

 

"Despite what lies within him Jamie will not harm me, he hasn't the soul to do so." Claire affirmed even as her hand, slightly swollen, still stung from his bite."Our time together will be brief, only to the coast and then no more will we ever see each other again. My power will hold until then."

 

Geillis' tea changed to a tepid rosey pink, much to her disgust, scooting the cup to the edge of the table with a clink at its rim that Boromir delightfully answered with a dip of his beak.

 

"On yer head then." Geillis muttered then under her breath, that left a small grin to Claire's lips, added, "Why do I let my heart grow weak for such a fool?" She stood to cross the room where her cloak was draped over a chair at the hearth.

 

"My room to the back is yers to wash and sleep. Or ye can eat whatever is stewing away in the my black as soot cauldron if ye dare to." She joked…or possibly not.

 

"Thank you, Geillie." Claire spoke rising as well with a question of where she was going.

 

"Another deal with the spirits, this time much more pleasant I reckon." She winked. "And you." With a kick at Jamie's leg that had him scrambling to a sitting position. "Wash the stink from yerself outside before I boil it out of ye. Boromir will provide ye clothes won't ye, my sweet lad?" A loud squawk was her ravens reply and Jamie didn't bother to ask how a bird could fetch him cloth.

 

Geillis left with a swish of her now cloaked form, to follow crystal streams to a secluded brook most wonderfully familiar, leaving Jamie and Claire alone in the house that creaked with the wind.

 

Claire bent to her knees in front of him, keeping a comfortable distance between. "How long have you been awake?"

 

"Long enough." Was Jamie's curt reply as he stretched his shoulders to a pop, stiff from the hard stone he was left to sprawl on. Without casting his sight her way Jamie's asked, "Do ye trust her enough to stay or do we go?" He hated that he had to ask and so did Claire.

 

"We're safe here for now, but what do you want to do? Should we stay or go?"

 

Jamie raised his gaze what he considered a feeble gesture she offered and found earnesty in the sheen of eyes of the woman dipped in the gentle burn of firelight. "Tired as I am it's no' like I can refuse. I'll take ye for yer word, _Sassenach."_

 

With a last quip that gave Claire a light chuckle despite the insult, Jamie felt his back meet the wall puffed with soft blades of green, his eyes drooping to a close, feeling the beat of her heart a calming rhythm to his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Fenrir is from norse mythology  
> *Boromir's name from the Lord of the Rings
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

The air within the oakwood chamber was damp, cool and richly lush with the fresh, clean, fragrance of wild mint and lavender that overlapped the twisted bark above as the knotted walls bellowed like the rise and fall of a creatures ribs moaning hauntingly so.

 

Nevertheless, the creeping night had been a gift of peace for Claire, who laid enveloped in the healing depths of slumber of which she had been without for so long. Where anguish momentarily lifted from her heart steadying it to a calming rhythm, spreading warmth in a glowing blue of harmony that mended not only her bruises and scrapes but also the painful strain of another’s cursed psyche that had been consuming her mind, tainting her blood.

 

And it was that link so quiet as not to stir her from the sanctity and unbothered bliss of a dreamless sleep that had Claire waking with a sense of unease, questioning if the damned red man had absconded stupidly into the night.

 

Throwing off the muslin sheets where she was bared to her stippled moonlit skin, Claire dressed hastily in clothes unfamiliar but wonderfully clean, even as the thundercloud of her own accursed curls and low-hanging ivy slithering as snakes, blinded her in the rush.

 

Out the room where she crushed soft pennytops springing through the crackled stone floors, past the clustering white hemlock still curling wildly with infatuation that she slapped away, Claire was met with the oddest of sights that had her palming her eyes.

 

There sat Jamie, hunched forward on his elbows over the clawed table that was dotted with piles of acorns and pebbles, across the raven known as Boromir and glowering like an adolescent over what seemed like a simple game of draughts.

 

“You wee fowl of a cheat,” Jamie grumbled, causing the accused to ruffle feathers so black they lustered blue and glinted green, while throatily voicing a declaration of his innocence which was simply that of an offended  _caw_.

 

“Dinna give me any of yer beak,  _beag suid_ ,or I’ll have yer feathers plucked ‘till yer fleshed pink.” Jamie then continued to argue with Boromir, who practically molting from his rapid flapping, which is when Claire interceded with a clearing of her throat.

 

Loudly so. Then another. Causing Jamie to flinch from ruddy brow to cornered lip in mid verbal assault, keeping his back decidedly turned knowing he’d find a mocking grin pinching her cheeks.

 

“What exactly am I interrupting here may I ask? Other than the obvious threat of a full grown man towards an innocent bird.”

 

“Innocent?” He grunted, narrowing his eyes at the percieved guilty. “This bastard was the most decent thing I’ve met in years, apart from a hare roasted over fire - that is until he defiled our friendship with dirty underhanded play.” The accusation was emphasized with a hard pointed finger to the tabletop.

 

Hand on her hip, “How?”

 

“I dinna ken, but his mistress is a dark one and I shouldna see why a soul eater as he canna be as well.”

 

“Or just possibly his thumb sized intelligence is greater than yours.”

 

Claire was met with a sideways glare meant to melt her spine down to it’s marrow yet, it only prompted a fervent press of her hand to the delightfully spasming muscles of her belly. The first she had felt since her days with Raymond.

 

“This genius here as ye so believe tried to swallow an acorn whole. Had to pinch his throat for him to caw another day.” Boromir denied such a humiliating mishap by chancing a pecking at the broad back of Jamie’s hand that he in turn waved in a warning smack to his beak.

 

“So you’re telling me you’ve lost to a bird that you yourself have given a lowly opinion of intelligence to. No offense to you Boromir,” Claire was quick to add, looking over Jamie’s burning thatch curling as his annoyance peaked. “I think you’re the one with sense.”

 

Jamie then muttered underbreath a garble of something surely belittling in  _gàidhlig_  towards her, which was a grand deal better than him directly saying so in words she could understand. And before he changed his mind on that, Claire decided (with sharp insistence of her stomach) she needed sustenance better than a laugh, no matter the small flickering warmth it brought her.

 

She sought the great iron pot gently steaming and spouting a bubbly croon over the black sooted hearth and stirred it’s contents (what looked to be a delicious concoction of bobbling mushrooms, potatoes and other bountiful delights, spiced strongly with cloves of garlic and herbs that crossed enticingly under her nose), wondering where Geillis could be and for that matter the time of day it was. The light that sneaked through the crevices of the saplings glowed rather darkly like the haggard setting of the day and those hours lost ticked away in Claire’s mind.

 

“Is it sundown already?” She asked with a furrowed brow to Jamie, who had been pawing at Boromir’s loot of acorns before getting nicked by his beak.

 

“Aye,” Jamie mumbled roughly past his lips where the injured finger was being nursed. “Of what day I canna say. One - two may have past that I’ve noticed. I suspect something in the water, even the air that’s made a blur of it all and it must be something mighty to do us both in. Especially me.”

 

“What makes you think so?”

 

Jamie’s finger glistened with a small drop of blood near black that he smeared against thumb and forefinger before speaking again.

 

“I woke somewhere between the last we spoke to now, my mouth thirsting. I looked to that pitcher there beside ye as our  _fine feathered lad_  here deemed it well enough to drink. Next I knew I was on my face pooled wet in senseless dreams with Boromir pecking at my heid, clawing at my cheek.”

 

Abuse Jamie welcomed as the dreams were nightmares echoing the past that threatened to choke him as the hangman’s noose. The pool that drenched him his sweat from a brewing fever of fright with the black bird trying desperately to rouse him from his minds relentless torment. Jamie reluctantly lowered his head in gratitude to Boromir whose guarded stance relaxed to that of a dove.

 

“I dinna trust the water and that extends to the food. Been eating acorns and black currants from the vine that grows above us since noontide and no misfortune has befallen me yet.”

 

While Claire knew Geillis had a perverse penchant for playing tricks, it wouldn’t explain her own sedation as she was immune to all earthly poison. Pondering possibilities she deduced the most obvious.

 

“While I can’t say Geillis isn’t capable of doing such a thing, I think it was simply our bodies meeting their limits. Exhaustion overtaking us.” Claire reasoned, spooning soup to two bowls crudely shaped from black walnut that sat purposefully aside for her and Jamie (Had Geillis been back since she left them that night?). She placed one in front of him that he wrinkled his nose to, then took her seat at Boromir’s end who was ever the gentleman and shuffled aside.

 

“Even if I were inclined to believe ye, I’m no’ touchin’ food made from that woman’s baneful hand.” Jamie shoved the bowl away, broth dripping down the rim as he reached instead for a large handful of acorns to gorge on without the squawking scorn.

 

“If we are ever to leave this place and never see one another again - which you’ve made quite clear is your desire as is mine, you will need your strength, Jamie. The faster you eat the better for us both.”

 

Jamie fixed a single unblinking stare to Claire as he popped the acorns to his mouth, one after the other. Each louder than the last in stubborn emphasis.

 

“You child.” Rolling her eyes, Claire left him to his chosen meal fit for bushy-tailed vermin and tucked in to hers. Lapping up a veggie stacked spoonful that swam hot across her tongue, a peculiar expression fell upon her face that had Jamie’s brows pitched high.

 

 _“Poison.”_  The word was spoken with an odd tone of smug validation.

 

“Pepper.” Claire retorted flatly, with the heat of it catching in her throat. “Quite a lot too. Still, I’d wager it’s a grand deal better than what you’re having.”

 

While Claire continued to eat, the steamy aroma relentlessly teased Jamie’s fortitude that crumbled with every writhing lurch of his stomach, groaning so like a feral shriek it startled even himself.

 

Uttering, “Shit,” Jamie grabbed for the spoon, provoking a smile that warmed Claire better than the soup. The heat of it spreading to her cheeks when her glowing amusement was mistaken for gloating and was met with a firm press of his boot over the tip of hers,  _'Dinna say a word.’_

 

She didn’t.

 

Instead the whizzing and crackling fire did the talking with the nervous rustling of summers last verdant creation sneering back. Boromir’s gurgling  _kraa_  filled the gaps between as he joined the feast at Jamie’s urging. Bickering forgotten, forgiveness granted.

 

Time would have passed pleasantly, the silence preferable over a chancing of another snide remark taken farther then a jest, more cruel than a bite, if not for the entrance from the brisk outside of one who could see to the center of a man if evil be found there and relished in it so.

 

“Keep on wi’ yer daggers stag and I’ll tear yer eyes to crush beneath my shoon.” Her white teeth gleaming in the dusky light, Geillis chuckled darkly at Jamie until Boromir shrieked in his defense, fingers tensing at the clasps of her cloak.

 

“Bleeding devil’s, yer getting a mouth on ye. And the state of ye,” she clicked her tongue sharply as she chucked her cloak to hang on the roots protruding from the walls. “Mussed as a drowned rat.”

 

Despite his less than kind proclamations earlier, Jamie gently stroked his knuckle to Boromir’s feathered back, softly speaking most sincere. “Ye’ve a most handsome feather about ye, lad. Dinna mind yer Mistresses foul withered tongue.”

 

Defiant eyed, Jamie shrugged his shoulders dismissively as Claire hushed him, fingers curling in her lap as if to strike the words from his mouth but little too late.

 

Her unnatural feral eyes became entirely devoid of white, but upon hearing the hitch in Claire’s throat pleading gaze, Geillis sighed and curled her lovely mouth so wide that it sent a chill through the three.

 

“Och, sweet on each other are ye now?” Her voice sopping with mockery. “Beware my kinsman, the glutton will shit on ye when his gullet is filled to the brim. Vomits when he dips his pecker in the drink too. But at the very least he swallows his own sick.”

 

Amused with herself, Geillis walked to the hearth and raised her chilled palms to the fire, kindling bright as the flame. Her blonde lashes flicked nearly flittering closed when Claire asked where she had been.

 

“The sleep steal yer memories as well,  _mo calman geal_? I shouldna be surprised what wi’ the both of ye still-bodied as death when I shuffled about these days past.” Her mossy eyes crinkled at the corners. “And ye ungrateful pair are welcomed for the clothes and food.”

 

“You have our gratitude, Geillie. Immensely ,” Claire’s voice rose in appeasement, looking over her shoulder to Jamie who stared just as hard back. Geillis however hummed in appreciation.

 

“I’ve been asking around the wood to find ye both passage past where my name willna help ye. I conversed at great length wi’ every spirit I have favor wi’. Exhausted me so.” Her face flushed unabashed to the roots of her hair, giggling like a youth.

 

“But it was mo  _Aloisia_ , who held the way.” She said fondly. “A nymph from the very waters of  _Iona_ , practically drowned me to do so. Had watercress in the crack of my arse.”

 

Before she could detail any further where reeds and lily pads had caressed her, Claire hurriedly interrupted her. “So it’s by the river we journey?”

 

“Aye, a wee boat long abandoned is drifting our way now to quickly set ye to  _Le Havre_  before the butcher can find ye. And he is searching mo leannan, the trees whisper it. Water is the answer.”

 

“What do you think, Jamie?” Claire turned to Jamie who had been silent through it all to find his hands clapped to his face where he had gone green as the briny sea.

 

“Jamie?”

 

“Damn all ye soulless woman.” He wretchedly groaned looking to retch right on the spot.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all who continue to read this story!

**Author's Note:**

> A quick one shot I wrote to help with writer's block. I'm also posting from my phone so sorry if it looks wonky.
> 
> It's a story that's been in my brain since I was thirteen but I whittled the story down to be outlandered and all I had left was enough for a one shot. I might pick this up if I figure out where to take it but only after I finish everything else.....unless I get writer's block again.
> 
> I hope someone finds this entertaining.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


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